I analyze data with statistical software . I have an interview for a new job coming up. They want to see examples of my work which nobody has never asked for in the past.
The main issue I have is that as far as I know , all the work I do now is not supposed to go outside my current company. I assume the new place knows this , but do they just think I should break my current company’s rules to send them examples?
I do have some small examples of my work in public domain since I have presented them at conventions. They might be OK with just looking at those examples. But most people don’t have that .
I do a lot of interviewing for software engineers.
Do NOT give out samples of your current work. We also ask for code samples (not sure if you are talking code or some other type of sample…) but we make it clear that it is not supposed to be anything other than your own hobby code, or the answer to a coding question that we provide. Indeed, sending in code that even has a whiff of “this is code I wrote for my current job” gets you thrown out of the interview process.
Not knowing the exact nature of your work, I’d just say to put together something that shows off your skills, and be prepared to talk about why you think what you submitted was particularly cool. It’s actually a pretty cool way to interview; no more “stand up at a white board and write some code while we all watch.” Instead, it’s a sample project that you work on at your leisure and then talk us through it. Much less nerve-wracking than a traditional interview IMO.
For us, at least, “I don’t do coding for a hobby” wouldn’t get you very far. Not that we require that you code for a hobby, but we do ask that you take the time to put together a short code sample, something like 4-6 hours of work. If an applicant isn’t willing/able to do that, we’ll do a white-board coding exercise, but it really starts the interview off on a bad note. If you’ve got some sort of really valid excuse - something along the lines of “Oh, I’m heading out of town on vacation for 2 weeks and you want to interview me 2 days after I get back so there’s no way on earth I have time to do the coding exercise” - then it would probably be ok. Simply saying “I don’t have anything out there and I’m not going to take any time to throw something together” will start you out badly.
Of course, that’s just us. Maybe the place you’re interviewing at is less stringent. But honestly, unless you have absolutely no way to get some code to show them, I’d do it. A good code sample goes a LONG way with us; no code sample or a bad one almost always guarantees no job offer.
This comes up all the time in my line of work as well. I write large Government proposals as part of business development. The problem is that every business development person in my line of work claims that in addition to setting up deals, they also write proposals, which is often not the case. Being the guy who takes someone out to lunch and proofreading someone else’s work is not the same as generating new content, and doubly so if it requires original thoughts for a new research grant.
As such, we often ask for a writing sample from new technical writers. We are aware that this requires data from another company, so we ask for just a few paragraphs from a proposal that the person interviewing specifically wrote, with all company names removed, and with no mention of anything proprietary to the other company. If at all possible, we ask that it not be from their present employer as well. We emphasize that we only want to see their writing style and not the content. What we are looking for is someone who is detail oriented. If they turn in something that is full of typos, bad grammar, or where every sentence is structured the exact same way, making it a document no one wants to read, then they are disqualified. If a candidate told me there were uncomfortable providing this data, I would be fine with that if they could provide something else they wrote instead, even if it was a fan fiction or something else creative.
I don’t do what I call “hard core” coding. I don’t do C, C++, Java, etc. I do data analysis which is a lot different type of work. And as I said, I’ve never been asked for a sample before in 25 years in this field.
Also in this field they don’t make me write code during the interview on a white board or anywhere else.
I know it’s awkward, but why don’t you ask for what they are looking for and explain under current NDA/confidentiality/non-disclosure/etc rules, you can’t share anything beyond the public stuff. Be proactive, frame it as a “can do” person working out how to deliver without violating your current employer. And, if needed, make the point that you would treat proprietary data exactly the same way if you join their company.
Why would you expect someone to do “coding as a hobby”? That sounds absurd to me. I don’t create Gantt charts or sales proposals as a “hobby”. Doesn’t mean I don’t kick ass at it.
Plus how do you evaluate candidates if they each send their own arbitrary code samples? Whenever I’ve had to do a coding sample, I was given a specific problem to solve.
My current firm, we ask candidates to submit a PowerPoint deck of their case interview. It’s actually a pretty good indicator of their ability to frame the details of an abstract business problem and present it back to a client. But again, we are asking them to create something from the materials we provide, not send us prior work.
I generally don’t consider any job that asks me to provide samples of previous work, regardless if it’s code, writing samples or whatever.
No, it’s probably not. It’s a pretty standard request in many tech fields, most interviewers are prepared for the answer that you can’t provide anything from your current job. I’ve managed to respond with hobby code and some modified code from previous projects.
I once had a job interview for a business analyst position where the employer wanted a writing sample from my current employment. I explained to them that my employer’s documents were proprietary and I couldn’t share them. They asked a couple times and I declined both times and they opted to interview me anyway. Fine. In the interview, the manager again mentioned the writing sample requirement and I AGAIN told him that I could not share writing from my current employer and why. He replied “well, what are we going to do about that?” Still trying to be professional, I suggested a writing test. He said “no, we can’t do that” and then just stared at me silently, apparently waiting for me to buckle. I stared back at him, honestly trying to think of another alternative but couldn’t think of anything. Finally, he proceeded with general interview questions but I decided right there that I didn’t want to work for an asshat who couldn’t accept reasonable alternate solutions to a problem.
I’m a business analyst and write everything from software requirements to data processing documentation for external audiences. The problem I have with what you said here is that the writing style I use at each employer is dictated by the employer, not me. You’d disqualify me especially if I ever showed you a piece of our external documentation because it’s all authored by committee (I’ve described my frustrations with the process in another thread in SDMB). We fight constantly about whether something says what we think it does, rewrite it to death and the end result is always really shitty grammar and obtuse meanings. It bears no resemblance to how I personally would have written it. It’s better to give your candidates a writing test to check for the things you describe.
The best job interview I ever heard of was when my daughter applied for a job as a copy editor for a small publisher (she turned out to be the eighth hire). They had a short list of three applicants and gave each of them a short paper to copy edit, paying them each $50 (this was nearly 25 years ago) and choosing the best. Not only did they like my daughter’s best, they also actually used it in their publication.
You missed the part where I said “Not that we require that you code for a hobby”
We ask for one of 3 things:
1: a sample based on a coding problem we pose. I’d say 95% of applicants do this.
2: a link and/or copy of their own coding project, if they have a hobby project they’re willing to share
3: If they can’t do either of the above, white-board coding exercises.
#1 and #2 is the least-stressful, most-likely-to-impress methods. We’d MUCH rather take a code sample that someone had time to work on and could emphasize their strengths than deal with people put on the spot and asked to code live on a white board. It’s pretty easy to glean someone’s skills, strengths, and weaknesses with a sample. It also lets people really shine where they want - ie, the person who really likes doing front end work can show us a sample written in the latest sexiest front-end framework and demonstrate their skill, or the person who really is into OO design can show us how they set up the project architecture, etc etc.
For software engineers, it’s pretty standard practice to ask for code samples. Dunno about other fields, but I’d pretty much shy away from a place that didn’t take the time to make sure I could really code.
Just tell them you’d gladly sign a contract to do six hours of programming for them. $1000 is pretty small change when they’re making a ~$100k decision. If they balk, ask them if their employees usually agree to do free work for their customers and if that’s the kind of employee they want to hire?
I didn’t, but enough people mentioned it that it seemed like a reasonable question. I know there are a lot of people who do write software applications for fun. But to me, requiring it for a job just seems like one of those weird techie affectations where companies want people who live and breath code-writing (presumably so they can lock them in a basement and have theme write code day and night.
That makes sense. I’m very much a fan of having people perform practical examples of the sort of work they would actually do if we hired them.
Completely agree. I actually have to argue this sometimes with others on the interview committee; every few months someone starts floating the idea that we must require someone’s github or similar account info as part of the hiring process and I have to say “whoooaaaaa we want folks with lives, it’s fine and good if people want to code on their own time, but we’re not making it a requirement.”
And honestly, for myself, I want to hire well-rounded people. If you code 40+ hours a week for work and your only hobby is coding, you better be God’s gift to technology. Most of the time, they’re not.
I recall reading somewhere that some places likely won’t interview a person if they don’t have open source projects they have worked on in their spare time.
And some places won’t hire you if you don’t give them your Facebook password. In either case I believe the problem, while certainly existent, is not as common as many would have you believe. Still doesn’t make it right though.
Coding can be different. I have hired many programmers over the years, occasionally asking for sample code. In my field, scientific programming (I am not a programmer but an oceanographer sucked in to contract management), about half the programmers programmed for fun as well as profit. Those programmers naturally liked to work with like-minded folks. And they claimed they could see a lot in the way even short code segments were written. Whether it was just being cool or actually “efficient” that way I am not able to judge. But for some programmers it is a real thing. For others, the ability to communicate was considered more important. For people like me, which languages they knew was important-a factor the programmers universally derided as an insult to the profession.